


Stardust

by Yana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Allura and Lance Act Like Siblings, Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Blue Paladin Allura (Voltron), Conspiracy, Crying, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Haggar is Lance's Mother, Langst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Team as Family, a lot of crying, but they're not siblings, red paladin lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 03:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11638401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yana/pseuds/Yana
Summary: The team is finally functional again after Shiro’s disappearance. In Zarkon’s absence his son Lotor takes over conquering the Universe and Team Voltron is working on a plan to stop him. But Lance’s encounter with the witch Haggar turns his life upside down and he has to realize he is not who he believed himself to be.





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction inspired by barafield’s fanart http://barafield.tumblr.com/post/161573217576/i-liked-this-au-where-lance-is-haggars-kid-so-i which was inspired by bijellyfishy’s fanfiction https://bijellyfishy.tumblr.com/post/161494201907/the-son-of-haggar-part-1 It’s a Shance fic, give it a try if you like that ship too ;)

 

He sometimes dreamed about walking on stardust. He had his arms spread out to keep his balance as he put one bare foot before the other in slow motion. The dust felt cool and sparkly against his bare skin, like when you poured that candy into your mouth that started popping on your tongue. He loved the feeling, he always loved it ever since he was a small child and had dreamed about it for the first time. It felt good. Right. _Home._

Not that he didn’t feel at home with his family. He loved his parents, siblings and grandparents, don’t misunderstand it. But that walk across the stardust was something else.

Maybe that was why he loved the beach so much when he was awake. It felt similar to the stardust. It was cool, dust-like, but it lacked the sparkling. He knew he would never set foot on something like it in his wake. It was so unique, so… _unearthly_. _Magical_. Every time he dreamt about it, it awoke emotions that he had never known existed inside him. Longing. Home sickness. Grief. All were unexplainable. Why would he be home sick when he was home? Why would he feel grief when none in his family had died?

The longing he could somehow work with. He knew what he wanted every time he looked up at the night sky dotted with stars. He wanted to go there, find a way to get out there. To let that pull in his heart lose and let it guide him out to the unknown. The Garrison was the only way he could accomplish it, so he worked hard and joined as soon as he could.

But getting out to space turned out to be more difficult than he thought. Training and challenges, just the fittest being able to get closer to the chance to be in a team that would then go out to space. It would take years, Lance knew that. But he had waited for this chance all his life, he could wait some more, right?

Apparently fate was very impatient. Not long after he had joined the Garrison, his path crossed with other four people and together they found _it_. A _lion._

_The Blue Lion_.

He felt the pull again as soon as he set eyes on it. _Her_. Her eyes bore into his and she pulled and pulled until his hand touched the force field surrounding her. She let him in and as soon as he sat down a voice, _her voice_ echoed in his head.

_You’re back_ , she said. In his head. The _Lion_ was _speaking_ in his _head_. Unbelievable. Lance gasped when he first heard it, not really realizing what the words meant.

The Galra ship chased them through the Solar System, him luring them away from Earth, then as soon as they passed the last planet he felt this… _tingling_. A shiver ran down his spine, his hair standing up on his arms as this unfamiliar still natural feeling took over him. He didn’t know what he was doing, but deep in his mind he still did, and this confused him but he had no time to dwell on it.

_Where?_

And unconsciously he answered.

_Home._

A shining light appeared. A _wormhole_  opened in front of them, and while he was uncertain and asked Shiro what to do, his mind was cheering because yes. Finally. He was going where he truly belonged.

Finding the Castle of Lions filled him with something he learnt to ignore for a long time. The grief. Hearing that an entire race was erased and their home planet was destroyed made it worse than before. His nights were restless as he usually startled awake by dreams, good and bad either.

The bad were usually about the Galra attacking them. Sometimes they just hurt his friends, sometimes they were about to kill them and Lance couldn’t do anything. Sometimes Zakron’s ship destroyed Earth like it had done with Altea. Once again, Lance couldn’t prevent it. Dreams like these made him doubt if he really was a good Paladin. The others all had incredible skills they could use in a fight, but him? He was just a kid. Nothing special. Why would Blue choose someone like him as a Paladin?

Then there were the… good dreams. He still had his usual dream with him walking on stardust, but it was slowly replaced with a new one.

He was on a field of flowers. The wind was gently blowing, filling his nose with the sweet smell of spring. Someone brushed his cheek and he looked up. He never saw the person’s face, the sun above their head blinded him. He could only see the long white hair almost reaching the grass and a gentle smile. The person spoke to him with a warm voice but he couldn’t tell how it sounded exactly. But there was something he knew: It made him sad. And when he woke up the next morning his cheeks were usually wet, ruining the mask he put on his face the previous evening.

Weeks, months, or maybe a year passed by like this while they traveled through the universe, fighting the Galra Empire, forming Voltron, helping innocents in need. Keith turned out to be half-Galra, which shook most of the team. Five seventh to be exact – Keith included. Shiro was supporting and everything, reassured Keith that he was still Keith and he belonged in the team.

As for Lance?

He was surprised, of course. One of his team mates turning out to be half-alien, half of the same aliens who conquered the Universe? Life had a bad humor. But he knew pity was the last thing Keith needed now, so he acted around him as he always did. He bantered or argued with him about stupid things, criticized his mullet, the usual. Keith went with it, argued back and everything, and while they did Lance was happy to see life returning to Keith’s eyes. The team eventually got used to the fact that one of them was not completely human, and they continued their plan with the giant teludav.

Then Shiro was gone, and the team lost their footing. The uncertainty was unbearable. They had no idea where to look for him, Black was not responding at all, they had no new information about Zarkon and that was more concerning than knowing what he was up to.

Lance only just now realized how close Keith and Shiro were. He’d already known they knew each other, but he never really thought about it. Keith, once again, distanced himself from the team, like he’d done after the reveal of his Galra origins. He spent most of his time alone in the training room, chopping bots left and right, not stopping for even a minute break until he almost collapsed in exhaustion.

One day, about a week after Shiro’s disappearance, Lance had enough with this. He went to the control room and shut down everything so successfully, later Coran had to work on it for two hours while scolding the two.

“What do you want?” Keith grunted when Lance entered the training ground.

“When was the last time you ate or slept?” he asked. “Or took a proper shower, because, don’t get me wrong, you stink a lot, man.”

Keith huffed and turned away. The lack of bots didn’t seem to bother him, he continued swinging his sword. Lance shook his head and stepped behind the other to take the sword away from him.

They were both surprised he actually managed to do it. Keith flexed his fingers around the thin air where the hilt used to be with wide eyes, and Lance looked down at the sword in his hand. He chewed on the inside of his mouth a bit then deactivated the Bayard.

“Zarkon can attack us anytime” he said.

“And that’s exactly why I’m training!” Keith argued. “I want to be ready!”

“Well if you want to be totally exhausted when they get there, then you’re doing a great job!” Lance yelled back. “Shiro wouldn’t want you to work yourself to death!”

He regretted saying it as soon as the last words left his mouth. Keith paled and shut his mouth so tight his lips started to turn white. Lance’s on the other hand parted and he took a few shaky breaths.

“I’m sorry” he whispered as he looked down with shame. “We’re grieving, you more than any of us. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

After a long, uncomfortable silence a sigh broke out of Keith.

“He’s the only family I still have.”

Lance glanced up at Keith. He was mindlessly playing with his gloves, unfocused eyes staring ahead. He looked miserable.

“I don’t know what you’re going through” he started. “I was never left by my family. Only—” he sighed. “Only I left them.”

Keith turned his eyes and focused on him.

“My parents, grandparents, my siblings and their children—They’re all back on Earth, probably told by the Garrison that I went missing in action or died in an accident. I just flew away with a giant space lion without saying goodbye. They probably know how you feel now.” He bit his lower lip and walked a bit closer to Keith. “Me on the other hand? I think I know how Shiro feels now. If he’s out there somewhere, and believe me, he is out there somewhere, he feels real bad for leaving you. Because I feel real bad too for leaving my family.”

He and Keith locked eyes for a very long moment. It didn’t—feel awkward or anything, on the contrary, Lance thought it was a very nice moment. Like in a span of a few seconds they finally found the common ground they were looking for all this time.

Keith was the first to look away. He rubbed his palms onto the sides of his shirt and jeans a few times.

“I—” he started. “I know he’s alive and—” A sigh. “Everyone expects me to replace him, be the new Black Paladin, lead Voltron, and it’s—It’s too much. I wouldn’t be a good leader, you know me. I’m reckless, and don’t think before I jump head first into things. I don’t know why Shiro asked me. Just because the Black Lion let me in that one time doesn’t mean it would happen again.”

A sad smile appeared on Lance’s face. He looked down at the Red Bayard in his hand, brushed the surface with the tip of his fingers, then handed it back to Keith.

“I’m sorry for putting pressure on you” Lance said, to what Keith shook his head.

“That ‘everyone’ earlier didn’t include you.” When he saw Lance’s frown he continued as he took back his Bayard. “You’re the only one who doesn’t expect something great from me. When we talk I feel like you don’t want me to be more than what I already am.”

Lance looked down at his feet.

“Yeah, sure man.”

They silently stood there for a while.

“And, you know” Lance said as he shrugged. “Maybe Black will accept you this time too. You have the same goal after all. Finding Shiro.”

Keith turned his Bayard in his hand a few times, then looked up at Lance. With a small, shy smile.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, man.” Lance patted Keith’s shoulder and turned to leave, when a hand stopped him on his arm.

Keith stepped next to Lance, shoulders raised slightly.

“If Black—”

“When” Lance corrected him.

“ _When_ Black accepts me as her temporary Paladin, I have to leave Red for that time.” Keith paused to take a deep breath. “Would you be her Paladin until Shiro’s back?”

Wha—

Lance had to really think about this offer. It felt great that Keith trusted him this much, but that would mean leaving Blue. He couldn’t just leave Blue like that.

Not like he had done with his family.

“I’ll think about it. Really.”

Keith nodded and the two left the training room. That was when Coran arrived to scold them.

Hours later Lance found himself sitting in Blue’s cockpit, leaning back in his chair with arms behind his head, deep in thoughts.

“Would you be angry at me?” he asked. “Would you be angry if I piloted an other Lion?”

Reassuring warmth spread through him, heating up his chest a little. The feeling let Lance take an easier breath.

“Thanks, girl. You know it’s just temporary, right? Just until we find Shiro.”

Blue rumbled with understanding.

“But what about you? I can’t just leave you without a pilot.”

A picture appeared in his mind followed by something similar to a nudge. Lance frowned.

“You sure?” After an other nudge Lance stood up. “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

That was why he asked Allura to be Blue’s Paladin. The Altean princess was stunned by the offer, but gracefully accepted it.

“I would be honored to pilot the Blue Lion until our team is whole again.”

As it turned out Allura was a natural. She already had a connection to all of the Lions, so her becoming a Paladin felt like she always was one. Both Lance and Blue helped her a lot, and she mastered everything in no time. She had a glint in her eyes after she got out of the Lion the first time she flew with her alone. A glint Lance hadn’t seen before. Coran privately told him he hadn’t seen it since Zarkon turned against them. It was like Allura got a new purpose in her life and she wanted to use this new found power as much as she could.

Keith had a rocky beginning with Black. The Lion mostly ignored him, laying in the hangar like a lifeless action figure. Lance wondered if machine lions could have depression. In the end their mutual eagerness to find Shiro helped Black to accept Keith as her Paladin, and their team work was like a well oiled machine from the first minute.

Lance and Red though? Let’s not talk about it…

Red didn’t respond to Lance at all, and the Paladin couldn’t tell if she hated him for some reason, or she was angry at Keith for abandoning her. None the less, it frustrated Lance a lot. Without Red they couldn’t form Voltron. If they couldn’t form Voltron, they couldn’t fight Zarkon. If they couldn’t fight Zarkon, he would continue hurting people everywhere in the Universe.

“Man, I appreciate that I was your first choice to pilot Red, but are you sure it’s a good idea?” he asked Keith a few days later. The two were training sword fighting, because changing Lions meant changing Bayards too. And since the Red Bayard turned into a sword and Lance had little to no idea how to use a sword, Keith offered to help teach him.

Keith frowned at him.

“Why wouldn’t it be? You’re a good Paladin.”

Lance tried not to pay too much attention to what the praise did to his insides.

“Yeah, sure, but Hunk and Pidge are good too. And did you see Allura? She’s a natural. She should be the temporary Red Paladin, not me.”

Keith sighed and deactivated the Black Bayard.

“She didn’t respond to you, did she?”

Lance deactivated the Red Bayard too and stepped to his water bottle and towel. The latter he threw on his head, so his face was somewhat hidden.

“No” he answered after a long silence.

He heard Keith moving behind him and soon the other was standing next to him taking his own towel in hand.

“You know, Red can be—“

“Stubborn and bitchy?” Lance finished his sentence.

Keith huffed and a small smile appeared on his face.

“You could say that. She won’t just allow you to be her Paladin. You need to prove your worth.”

Lance rolled his eyes so hard his head followed the movement. He turned and sat down with his back against the wall.

“Stubborn, bitchy _and_ picky. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Red doesn’t want to accept me, meaning I’m not good enough.” Lance looked down and started rubbing the towel on his head. “You should’ve asked Allura” he added with a lower voice.

He didn’t expect Keith to crouch down in front of him and pull the towel off his head. Lance reached out for it but froze when he saw how intense Keith was looking at him.

“I picked you because I believe in you and what you’re capable of, and I know out of all the people in the Castle you are the only other one who Red would accept as her Paladin. She may be stubborn, bitchy and picky, and I’m sure she’s only doing it to annoy the hell out of me for taking Shiro’s place and leaving her to someone else, but I also know that once she gets over it, you two would be a great team, because you’re more accepting than anyone I’ve ever met with, and by this you will grow on her eventually.”

Keith stood up and left the room in a badly covered hurry, and Lance just sat there in stunned silence for a long while before he could stand up too. He reached for his towel but it turned out Keith left with it. He only saw it again the next day when the two boys met to continue their training. It was waiting for him on the bench he usually kept it. Both of them stubbornly ignored it and didn’t mention their conversation from the previous day.

It helped a little to be patient with Red. He knew it took time for some to get over their bad mood. Well, they didn’t have much time these days, the Galra could attack any minute, but before he became frustrated again by these thoughts, Lance took a deep breath and willed himself to calm down. He wouldn’t accomplish anything if he started yelling with Red.

His patience with the Lion of course came to an end when they received a distress signal from a planet close by. Allura quickly opened a wormhole leading to the coordinates and on the other side they came face to face with a Galra ship.

“Everyone! To the Lions!" Keith gave out the order.

The five of them started running to the direction of their Lions. But before Lance could enter his elevator, a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned to meet a smiling Keith standing next to him.

“It’s gonna be okay” he said with a low voice. “I know you can do it.”

With a last pat on his back Keith ran away to get to his own elevator. Lance would’ve stood there for a long while if not for Coran who yelled at him to get to the Lion quickly.

Getting to Red, Lance stopped before the Lion. He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes.

“Look. I know some recent events hurt your feelings, and I’m not asking you to forget them because your emotions are a hundred percent valid, but can we just work together for now to save these people?”

Silence. It was so deep it pressed on Lance’s eardrums.

“Come on, please. You wouldn’t want innocents to die, right?”

Nothing.

Through his comms Lance heard that the others were already out fighting. His stomach clenched. They needed him and Red. They needed to form Voltron because they would get hurt or worse…

Lance bit his lip, looked up at the Lion then steeled himself.

“You know what? Fine. Don’t let me in. It wouldn’t be my fault if the others die.”

The Lion stayed stubbornly silent and Lance just… snapped.

“You know what you are? A stubborn, bitchy idiot, that’s what! Because you’re so selfish that you only pay attention to your feelings while others get hurt! I feel like crap all the time, but do you see me hiding in my room instead of going on a mission? No! Because I know I have responsibilities! And your responsibility is to defend those who can’t defend themselves! That’s what you were made for! Not to act like an angsty teen in your hangar! I hate this situation as much as you do! So help me find Shiro, and you can get back your Paladin, and I can go back to my Lion!”

Lance knew he went a little bit too far. Yelling at a giant robot lion and telling her to get over her angst? Yeah, no. Worst idea ever. He expected Red to open her mouth and swallow him whole. Red was not like Blue who he could freely joke with. She was moody and petulant like her real Paladin.

So Lance was honestly shocked when Red made an annoyed growl and leaned down so Lance could enter her open mouth.

“Oh. Okay. Yeah.”

He quickly entered the Lion and sat down in front of the control panel. Every Lion looked the same on the inside, the only difference was the color, but the cockpit had a strong vibe of _Keith_. It felt strange.

Did sitting inside Black have a vibe of Shiro? Did Keith feel bad for sitting in his chair and feel his absent brother all around him?

No time to think about it now. He had more important things to do.

“Let’s go!”

 

*

 

They formed Voltron, and it was glorious. It was like the moment when you were whole again and you realized you had been broken into pieces, unknowingly missing every bit of yourself. It felt different, of course. Allura was there, and Lance and Keith weren’t in there Lions and their position within Voltron was different, but it was the best Lance ever felt in a long while.

The fight ended with their victory and many followed it. Voltron was back and the Universe felt a bit safer.

Red eventually warmed up to Lance. He felt that she was still not pleased with their current situation, but she didn’t blame Lance for it. Red had an even greater hate for the Galra than before and she wanted to go out and beat the shit out of them, but Lance firmly told her it was not reasonable to attack the enemy like that. No wonder Keith was Red’s Paladin. Two hot-headed, stubborn idiots.

With Voltron’s return a new threat entered in Zarkon’s sudden absence:

Lotor.

They only heard about him, he seemed to be always a step ahead of them, because every time they answered a distress signal, it was already too late. The planet was under attack or the enemy forces left long ago, leaving a trail of ruins and blood after them. The surviving people told them about him, the son of Zarkon, who didn’t look as monstrous as his father, but his actions were sometimes worse than his.

After missions like this Allura spent days on the bridge with Keith, trying to come up with a plan to prevent anything like this to ever happen again. Each failure affected them more and more, and the Paladins soon found themselves thinking before every mission if they would find any survivors at all.

“Let’s go to the source” Pidge suggested one day, dropping her spoon with barely contained anger. They were all sitting around the table, a bowl of goo before them, but none had the mood to eat.

“The source?” Lance asked back.

Pidge nodded.

“Let’s go to Zarkon’s ship and deal with this Lotor guy there.”

Allura shook her head.

“No, I doubt Lotor would be on Zarkon’s ship. The information we gathered indicates that Lotor has a different army than Zarkon. He must have his own fleet too.”

“But we could give it a try, right?” Hunk asked, carefully looking around to see the others’ reaction. “He wouldn’t expect us to attack him like that. He’d never see us coming.”

“Do you remember what happened the last two times when we attacked Zarkon’s ship?” Keith hit the table with his fist, making the others jump at the sudden sound. “First the wormhole was corrupted, then we lost Shiro. We’re not going anywhere near to Zarkon’s or Lotor’s ship. End of story.”

Keith stood and marched out of the room. He would have slammed the door behind him if it wasn’t sliding.

“Keith!” Lance was on his feet too and followed the other. “Keith, wait!”

Keith didn’t stop until they were on the other side of the Castle, far from the others. He sighed and turned to look at Lance.

“I can’t let anyone go near the enemy’s ships… I just can’t…”

Lance sighed and stepped closer to Keith.

“I know you miss Shiro, we all miss him. And I also know you worry about us, more now that you lead us. But sometimes we just have to face what we’re afraid of. We can’t accomplish anything if we retreat all the time when we get scared.”

“I’m not scared” Keith huffed.

“I’m scared” Lance admitted with a shrug which made Keith drop his angry mask. “I’m afraid of all of you getting hurt or killed by Zarkon. I’m afraid of the Galra Empire conquering Earth and we’re too far away to do anything or arrive too late to save anyone like all those planets in the last week.” Lance tilted his head and smiled at Keith with a sad one. “I think your fears are similar to mine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a human thing to get scared sometimes.”

Keith dropped his eyes after a moment.

“I’m not exactly human.”

“And? Being human is not a matter of blood. You seen any of those old sci-fi series where humans travel around the Universe and meet different aliens? The aliens think they are stupid and reckless and have unnecessary emotions that don’t make them fit to join an intergalactic alliance and things like that. But they prove them wrong every time because they have a different kind of thinking, look at everything differently, and give a new spin to the Universe. They always bring a change the Universe needs to go on.”

Keith frowned at him.

“I still don’t understand what it has to do with blood.”

Lance laughed.

“You know, there are these aliens at the beginning of every story. They join the human crew to fight with them, but at first they doubt if humans are good enough. But slowly season after season they grew to admire them and start acting and thinking similar to them. They become, like, honorary humans or something.”

Keith’s frown deepened.

“Are you telling me—“

“That you’re totally Spock? Absolutely.”

That made Keith crack a smile and the tension quickly left him. He shook his head and shoved Lance’s shoulder gently.

“Idiot.”

Lance, encouraged by how easily he managed to change Keith’s mood, put an arm around his shoulder, and started walking with him the way they came from.

“You know, I’m surprised you know Star Trek. It’s pretty old.”

“My Dad used to watch it when I was little.”

The two continued their way through the Castle in silence. Keith never talked about his father. Hell, Lance always thought that his father was a Galra and his mother was a human, but now it turned out it was the opposite. The only certain thing he knew about Keith’s family was that Shiro was like a brother to him, but that was it. No further details, no knowledge of if they were really related or not. Keith locked away every information about himself deep inside, and never let anyone take a look at it.

_“Paladins!”_ Allura’s voice was heard all around them. _“The Blade of Marmora just sent us a message. They’re on their way here. Be on the bridge in five dobashes!”_

Keith patted Lance’s back—

“Let’s go.”

 —then moved away from him to start walking towards the bridge. Lance’s fingers curled up then relaxed. He followed the other a few feet behind, watching his back, not having the courage to catch up.

 

*

 

It looked like Kolivan had the mysterious ability to show up at the right time with the right information they needed at that exact moment. Lance wondered if the Blade of Marmora had some spies in the Castle who were too good at hide-and-seek for the Paladins to find them.

“We have information of a small fleet of Lotor planning to invade this ice planet.” Kolivan tapped a tablet in his hand and the hologram of the mentioned planet appeared in front of them. “According to our sources a rare metal can be found under the surface. Lotor plans to mine this material and use it to build stronger ships.”

Coran leaned closer to the hologram.

“I’ve never heard about this planet before” he said.

“It wasn’t discovered until recently” the Galra answered.

Kolivan tapped the tablet again and the planet became smaller. With that, two black swirls appeared too. They moved on the same orbit around the planet. If Lance was correct about what the numbers meant, then each black hole was about 70 million kilometers away from the planet. Which was pretty close. Mercury was 57.9 million kilometers away from the Sun. The tidal forces had to be strong on the planet, but why hadn’t it broken apart yet? Lance wondered if the two black holes facing each other negated the other’s effects on it.

“It’s situated in the barycenter of two black holes and they block any signals coming from the planet. It’s a surprisingly stable system, which we want you to change.”

Lance turned away from the hologram and looked at Kolivan with the others.

“Change? What does that mean?” Hunk asked. “Can’t you just blow up the planet or something?”

Kolivan shook his head.

“An explosion would only break the planet into pieces and the metal would still be there, ready to be mined until the debrief reaches the event horizon. With that we would only make the Galra Empire’s job easier, because they wouldn’t need to drill into the planet.”

“You want us to send the planet into one of the black holes” Pidge said. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. She reached for Kolivan’s tablet who gave it to her without hesitation. Pidge entered her ‘I’m-a-genius’ mode and started tapping. “The twin black holes have the same mass, density and speed. They have the same gravitational pull on the planet and with that they somehow stabilized it. They probably used to be twin stars, about the same mass of our Sun. It’s almost impossible to push it out of its place.”

“Almost impossible means there’s a way to do it.” Kolivan crossed his arms. “We have to work quickly. The enemy’s fleet is already on its way.”

Lance glanced at Allura. She moved behind Pidge while she was speaking and the two of them now were looking at the data provided by the Blade of Marmora.

“For us to disturb the balance of the system we need to create a new gravitational pull between the planet and one of the holes” she mused.

“I don’t think we can just make one disappear, or put a star between them” Lance said and rubbed the back of his neck as he looked back at the hologram. “Or a giant magnet.”

Silence fell on the room which Lance didn’t notice at first, but then he felt everyone’s eyes on him. He looked around and a nervous shiver ran down his spine when he saw everyone staring at him.

“What?”

Pidge quickly tapped on the tablet. The hologram focused on the planet again, but now it was cut in half. Her eyes lit up with surprise and excitement.

“That’s it! The planet has a very large iron core! We could build a giant electromagnet and pull it out of its location!”

Being stunned was a poor description of how Lance felt at the moment. He was kinda just joking with the magnet? He imagined a giant horseshoe shaped magnet floating in space, not some serious machine that would really help them.

Meanwhile Hunk, like the true engineer he was, got excited a well.

“That’s amazing! We should call the Olkari and Slav and ask if they can help us. They probably know how to build one, because a magnet that could move a planet is either gigantic or impossible, but they’ll probably know how to do it.”

Coran put a finger on his chin and looked upwards as he was thinking about it.

“We could ask for a crystal from the Balmera for a source of energy.”

Kolivan shook his head.

“Building that machine would take time.”

“You came to us for help.” Keith stepped forward and mirrored Kolivan’s posture. “We came up with a plan that would help. Yes, it will take time and the Galra Empire will start the mining on the planet, but I don’t think they can get enough material to build a ship when we’re ready. This is what we can offer. You can try to think of an other solution but you’ll risk running out of time and there’s no guarantee you can come up with anything else.”

Kolivan was silent for a long moment, then his shoulders slightly relaxed.

“I trust you, Paladins of Voltron. Let us hope we can realize this plan in time.”

Everyone started planning, sending messages to the same people who helped build the Teludav a few weeks ago, looking up where they could find materials for the giant space magnet.

And Lance just stood there, still not believing that a silly joke grew out to be the plan that would help the Universe.

 

*

 

Hunk, Allura and Coran left a few dobashes ago to ask for an other crystal from the Balmerans. Lance knew they were their allies and all, but they really shouldn’t go to them all the time when they had an energy problem. What if the planet ran out of crystals? What if the Balmerans got annoyed and broke all connections with them? He didn’t voice his worries because everyone was so eager to take action. He didn’t want to crush their spirit.

He stayed behind with Keith and Pidge on Olkarion and help in any way they could. Pidge soon went with Ryner to join the other Olkari scientist, and left Lance and Keith with—

“No. It’s absolutely impossible.”

Slav crossed all of his arms and turned his head away.

“You built a giant teludav, what stops you from building a magnet?” Keith asked, visibly confused.

“Impossible! You can’t put a magnet between a planet and a black hole! There’s an eighty percent chance the black hole would destroy the magnet before you can turn it on! And if you can turn it on, there is still a nineteen percent chance of it not working, and an active magnet with the energy to move a planet against the other black hole’s gravitational pull could result catastrophic consequences in eight hundred realities!”

As much as Lance had so much fun watching Keith losing the will to exist as he listened to Slav, him turning to Lance with pleading eyes was too much to resist. So he sighed and started looking at his nails. With the gloves on, yeah, but the motion was important here, not that he could examine his nails. They were perfectly grated, he knew that.

“Well, the Slavs in a million other realities are celebrated as a hero.”

That made Slav pause his panic.

“What?”

Lance shrugged.

“You know, that happens when you make the impossible work and save the Universe with it. You’re celebrated in a million different realities. But I guess this one might be not one of them. This reality is doomed when Lotor gets his dirty hands on that rare metal anyway. We can just sit around and wait for it.”

Lance wasn’t looking at him, but he could see Slav fidgeting.

“Our chance of succeeding with the electro magnet is a two percent range above catastrophic."

Lance turned back to Slav with a smile.

“Give us a list of everything you need. We’ll get them and help you grow those chances in every reality.”

Slav eyed him for a while then clapped his many hands.

“Always knew frequency between 606 to 608 was my lucky range of terahertz. I believe you.” He quickly wrote down a long list of things and gave it to Lance. “There you go! Don’t return without these!”

And with that Slav left to join the other Olkari.

Lance blinked a few times then turned to look at Keith who stared at him with a strange expression.

“What was that about the terahertz?” Lance asked.

Keith gaped for a moment and continued to stare at him, but he quickly shook his head.

“No idea.” Then he turned away a little.

Lance frowned at him but he didn’t think about it for long. He turned his attention to the list, that was their priority.

“Let’s ask someone where we can find these.”

 

*

 

They were half-way through the list when they found a Galra outpost. A very active Galra outpost next to a mining camp. It seemed Lotor was really into it nowadays.

Lance and Keith quickly landed on the other side of the planet’s moon before they were detected.

“Is this the only place we can find this hara— hara— harasomething and barasomething?” Lance asked.

_“Unfortunately yes. Let’s get down there and take a look around.”_

They managed to get to the surface without being detected and after they left their Lions at a safe distance, they approached the base.

“Where to go?” Lance asked with a low voice as he crouched back behind a box they used as a hiding place.

“According to the scanner one is that way and to other is that way.”

Lance took a look at said directions. There were long cave corridors both ways, stretching out who knew how long.

“We can’t waste our time here” he said in the end. “You go there and I go there.” When he saw Keith trying to disagree, he added. “It would take too much time if we stick together. I know splitting up is not ideal, but we can’t really do much here.”

Keith let out a long breath.

“Keep your comms on.”

Lance smiled at him.

“Of course.”

He didn’t have to walk down the corridor. As soon as he got to the opening, he noticed an air vent not far above him. He took a quick look around and with the help of his jetpack he reached it without trouble. Lance had to move quick but quietly. Below him guards were marching up and down the corridor. This hara or bara must had been some very expensive material if this many soldiers were protecting it.

The air vent ended exactly where he wanted to get. He made quick work with the rails, took a look around the room, then jumped out. It was a storage room and the boxes were filled with the material he needed that the Galra had already mined out. That was his lucky day.

_“I got what we need”_ Keith’s voice was heard. _“Where are you?”_

“In a storage room” Lance answered. “Boxes filled with this harabara-thing.”

He stepped to the closest box and opened it. The dark red material was shining even in the dim light. They needed only a small portion of it. Why did the Galra need that much?

_“I’m going there too.”_

“No.” Lance took out a vial from a pouch of his belt and filled it with the material. “Go back to the Lions. I’ll be behind you.”

_“No. I’m not leaving without you.”_

Lance snorted.

“It’s not a life or death situation. Don’t worry, I’m already on my way back.”

He secured the top of the vial and put it back into the pouch. He turned to go back to the door and enter the air vent again.

He never expected the attack from Haggar.

The energy that hit him took him by surprise. He could do nothing as it pushed him off his feet and he flew against the wall to his right. He made some kind of sound of surprise and pain, or maybe it was just a silent gasp, he wasn’t sure. His helmet got damaged and even if Keith was yelling, he couldn’t make out the words.

“Little Paladin.” The witch stood above him, looking down with yellow eyes from the shadow of her hood. “What are you doing here all alone, sneaking around? Looking for something?”

She glanced at the opened box behind her and Lance, not caring about how dizzy he felt, activated his Bayard and attacked the woman.

But she was aware of everything around her. She didn’t even look at him when she moved her hand and Lance found himself pinned against the wall. His breathing became faster as he tried to escape from the invisible force keeping him there, but it was just a meaningless struggle.

“Why do you need this?” Haggar turned back to look at him. “What are you planning?”

She raised a hand to put it on his head. Lance started to panic. Was she about to get inside his head? See what the Paladins and the Blade was planning? The plan would fail because of him if he let her do it. He couldn’t— He couldn’t—

A shiver ran down his spine and he squeezed his eyes shut. There was a cold breeze around him then nothing. But suddenly he felt too tired. His bottom hit the floor as he sat down against the wall. It took a few moments to realize he wasn’t pinned down anymore.

Lance opened his eyes to look up. Haggar stood a few feet away from him – when did she get there? – one hand still reaching out towards him. And that hand had ice on it.

“What—”

Haggar’s eyes widened behind her hood as the words caught on her tongue. She looked at the hand then down at Lance again. She waited for a few moments to shake off the thin layer of ice before she stepped closer to Lance again and leaned down to place her hands on his face. Lance couldn’t move. He felt too drained to do anything against Haggar getting closer to him.

The witch’s touch was cold against his skin and Lance shivered. Liquid ice spread in his body through his veins, freezing him even more.

Haggar studied him for a while, turning his head surprisingly gently to all directions, before a frown took the stunned expression’s place. One hand left his face only for two fingers to touch his forehead.

Lance screamed. His skull was on fire the moment Haggar’s fingers were on him. In the heat he felt like his skin was boiling and he spent years and decades and centuries screaming in pain.

“It’s you” the witch whispered with wonder and a hint of sadness in her voice. “It’s really you. You’re—”

An angry yell, but maybe more of a roar, was heard as a red blur came out of nowhere to push Haggar away from Lance, and Lance started falling, falling, falling…

 

*

 

…falling into someone face first.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. No need to worry.”

Lance only realized after a few heartbeats that he was flapping his arms, trying to fight whoever tried to hurt him. But he was only drawn into an embrace and his arms had no strength in them to really do any harm, so he dropped them and took a deep breath.

“That’s it” Allura brushed the back of his head, pulling him a little closer with the other. “You’re safe now.”

Lance sighed in relief and turned his head on her shoulder.

“What happened?” he slurred. He managed to open his eyes, blinking slowly to chase away the blur in his sight. He soon recognized the room. He just fell out of a healing pod. Everything was a little vibrant, but that would soon pass.

Allura was silent for a moment, and she paused for long enough to be suspicious. And now that he was a little more aware of his surroundings… Allura was uncharacteristically clingy. But Lance was too tired to point out these.

“Haggar attacked you” she said. “Fortunately Keith arrived just in time before she could do more.”

Lanced sighed again and closed his eyes.

“It hurt.”

“It’s alright now” Allura reassured him. “We’re far away from her. She can’t reach you here. We won’t allow it.”

Lance was slowly drifting away again, leaning more of his weight on Allura who held him without breaking a sweat, when he heard footsteps. He opened his eyes again and looked up to see who was approaching them but he saw nobody. Lance frowned. Was he only imagining it? The footsteps were getting louder and Allura was looking in that direction too, but where—

The door opened with a hiss and the others entered. Hunk and Pidge froze in the doorway the moment their eyes settled on him, Coran managed to take a few steps in their way before a very tired looking Keith passed him and marched to them.

“Lance.”

Lance’s heart skipped a beat when Allura carefully pulled away from him to let Keith take her place.

Keith’s hug was stronger, bone crushing even, but it felt too good to protest against it. Lance soon found himself returning the hug and he leaned his forehead against the other’s tense shoulder.

“It’s okay” Lance said.

Keith huffed.

“Shouldn’t I be the one to say that?”

Lance shrugged. Before he could say anything big arms circled around both of them. A funny squeak escaped Keith’s lips as they were pressed closer together.

“Lance, man! I was so worried about you!” Hunk sniffled. “Don’t do this again, okay?”

Lance chuckled.

“It’s not like I’m looking for trouble. Trouble always finds me.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re not looking for it. Let me pull out a list that says otherwise.”

Lance turned to look at Pidge and say something very intelligent but his breath caught.

He noticed his reflection in the glass of the pod.

And he look nothing like himself.

His once brown hair turned white, his ears became longer and pointy, blue marks were under both of his eyes which had a pinkish tint in his pupils.

“Lance?”

He looked like Allura and Coran.

“Lance!”

He turned ahead. The others were standing around him – when did they stop hugging? – looking at him with worry, and Keith had his hands on his shoulders.

“Breathe slower. You’re gonna faint.”

What? Why? He wasn’t—

Now that he paid attention to it, he really was breathing faster. He felt dizzy, his mouth was dry, his throat too tight for the air to get down to his lungs, his eyes stung and what the hell was happening to him? What was going on? Was it a joke? Or a prank?

“What—“ he croaked. It hurt to speak. “What did she do to me? What did she do to me?!”

He was panicking. Haggar did something to him. He needed to know what and how and why and he wanted this nightmare to end and to wake up in his bed back in his room, or even back at the Garrison—

Allura stepped next to Keith and cupped Lance’s face.

“Lance, I need you to listen to me.” Allura’s voice was strong and demanding, but still kind. “I need all of your attention. Can you do it?”

Lance blinked a few times, then turned to look into Allura’s eyes. He managed to push away all of his thoughts and focus on the hands on his shoulders and face. He took a shaky breath and nodded.

Allura smiled at him.

“Good.” She caressed his cheeks with her thumbs. “Haggar did not harm to you. I know it hurt” she added when Lance tried to protest. “I know. But all your tests ended with perfectly healthy results. She just—“ Allura swallowed. “Lance. What you’ll hear may scare you, but I assure you that everything is alright.”

Lance snorted.

“How can it be alright? Why do I look like you?”

Allura bit her lower lip.

“Lance. We ran tests on you while you were in the pod.” One of her hands moved up the side of his face and settled on brushing his hair. “All of them had perfect results.” She paused. “For a healthy Altean.”

Lance sobbed and his hands shot up to grab Keith’s wrists, who in return squeezed his shoulders.

“No. No, no, no. I’m human. My parents and my siblings are back on Earth.” He took a shaky breath. “How can I be Altean? I was in that pod many times. If I were Altean it would have known.”

“Coran and I think your time on Earth and your exposure to humans resulted a full adaptation of both human appearance and physiology.”

Lance shook his head as he stepped away from Keith and Allura and started laughing. He sounded hysterical to his own ears.

“I can’t be Altean. It doesn’t make sense. Didn’t you say Altea was destroyed ten thousand years ago? How can I be Altean when I’m this young? It’s not possible.”

Coran cleared his throat and everyone turned to look at him. He stood a few feet away from them, distancing himself from the group. He had dark circles under his eyes that looked harder than ever. Lance hadn’t seen him like this before.

“Regarding the fact that the Blue Lion was found on the same planet as you, I may know what happened to you.”

Allura frowned at her advisor.

“Why haven’t you said anything before?”

Coran casted down his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I didn’t want to share anything until Lance was out of the pod.” Coran glanced up at Lance, who was taken aback by the deep sadness in the other’s eyes. “Everything started when Zarkon turned against us.”

 

*

 

Alteans and other species alike ran from one place to the other, higher ranking officials giving out orders, scientists yelling at each other, creating a constant buzz in the hangar. The tension was palpable, one push to the wrong direction and everyone would start crying in panic. Everyone knew their doom was getting close, but they still hoped that it was still not too late to save themselves.

King Alfor knew all hope was in vain. Just like the Altean scientist looking at the King with rage. Coran wondered how the man could gather so much courage to defy his own King. Or he was simply mad. He didn’t know him that well. He was transferred to the Castle of Lions a few quintents ago.

“I’m not helping you. You want to save your own daughter, but what about the other children left on the planet?”

“There’s not enough time to evacuate everyone” the King said. “Zarkon’s fleet is approaching and it’s greater then ours. We’re all going to die. The only hope to ever form Voltron in the future depends on Allura’s survival. She’ll find the future Paladins of Voltron who will defeat Zarkon for our memory.”

The scientist shook his head.

“Not if the pods are not working.”

Alfor’s eyes widened and Coran reached for his weapon.

“How dare you—“

But Coran never got to finish his threat. Alfor lifted a hand and silently ordered him to stop.

“I suppose you want to make a deal.”

The man swallowed. He stepped closer and lowered his voice, so only Alfor and Coran would hear.

“I know about your plan. You’re sending away three of the Lions so Zarkon won’t be able to get his hands on Voltron.”

“Yes.”

Coran’s eyes widened as he turned to look at the King. He hadn’t heard about this plan yet. Why would he send away the Lions when Voltron could defeat Zarkon?

“I have a baby boy” the man continued. “I already lost my wife to Zarkon, I don’t want the same to happen to my son too. One of your Lions takes him to a safe planet and I’ll make the pods work again.”

Coran was quickly angered by the man’s words.

“My King, I must—“

“Deal” Alfor said before he could finish.

“But—“

“Coran” Alfor turned to him with an unreadable expression. “Send for the Blue Paladin.”

Coran couldn’t do other than follow the king’s orders. The Blue Paladin arrived soon, surprised by the sudden meeting.

“You called, King Alfor?”

“Yes, Paladin. Let us discuss something.”

Coran watched the three from a distance. The Blue Paladin was clearly stunned by the King’s and the scientist’s agreement and turned pale as Alfor continued to speak but didn’t dare to defy. A few dobashes later the Paladin and the scientist left, going to different directions, and Alfor stepped to Coran.

“Bring a pod to the Blue Lion in two vargas.”

Alfor walked away but Coran was petrified for a few long ticks. What King Alfor wanted was insane. Why would he send away the Lions when they needed them the most? Why would he make an agreement with a mad man? It didn’t make sense.

But Coran was a loyal servant and did as the King ordered. The Blue Paladin was already waiting in the hangar when he got there, and the scientist arrived soon too with a bundle in his arms. Tiny hands reached out through the covers and the baby made some low noises like he knew something was about to happen.

“Shh” the man cooed the baby. He put him on his shoulder and pressed his lips to the boy’s white hair. “It’s okay, dear. Everything’s okay.”

Coran looked at the boy’s hair, frowning in surprise.

“His mother—“

“Was killed by Zarkon” the man finished his sentence with a stern voice. “Honerva is dead.”

Coran nodded and turned to look at the pod. This situation was getting more twisted and darker with every passing moment. He wondered if the King knew whose child he agreed to save.

“I assume this pod doesn’t work either.”

The scientist stepped to Coran and, to the advisor’s greatest surprise, gave him the baby. Coran quickly adjusted his hands to securely hold the boy. He was still young, he came to this world not long ago. His blue eyes were still glassy, not seeing much as he blinked around, but he knew perfectly well that not his father was holding him. He soon started to fuss, the corners of his mouth curling down.

“It’s okay, dear” the man said as he made a quick work to repair the pod. “It’s okay.”

The man soon finished. His eyes grew distant as he looked down at the pod that would take away his son. Coran thought he was only now coming into terms what would happen.

“Do you—” the man started, looking at the Blue Paladin. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“King Alfor forbid me to tell anyone where the Lion will be hidden” the Paladin answered. “With this, if anyone in the Castle was captured, they wouldn’t give out any information to the enemy.” At the man’s frightened expression the Paladin continued. “Don’t be afraid. We would look after your son. Right, Blue?”

The Lion made a low sound in agreement.

“Here” Coran stepped to the man and gave him back his son. “It’s time.”

The man nodded and looked down at the boy, not being able to fight back the tears that soon rolled down his cheeks.

“I love you so much” he whispered. “I love you. Please, forgive me for sending you away. For not being there for you as you grow up. It’s better this way.”

The man kissed the boy’s forehead and placed him into the pod. But before he closed it he placed a small device next to him.

“What’s that?” Coran asked.

“Memories” the man answered with a teary smile and closed the pod.

The boy fussed for a few ticks then fell asleep. This was the moment the man started crying, burying his face into his palms. Coran, hit by a sudden sympathy for the man, placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it, while he looked at the Blue Paladin.

“Travel safe, friend.”

The Paladin nodded then said with harder eyes.

“Coran, a moment.”

Coran patted the man’s shoulder then helped the Paladin push the pod into the Lion’s mouth. Before entering, the Paladin turned back to him and started speaking with a low voice.

“Did you know what the King was planning?”

Coran shook his head. The Blue Paladin glanced at the man then back at the advisor.

“Something’s not right. Why would he send me away with a baby when the Castle and the planet needs every protection against Zarkon?”

“I unfortunately can’t give any answers to that, my friend. But I want to know it too.”

The Bule Paladin watched Coran for a while then placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Take care, Coran. Let’s hope our paths cross again under better circumstances.”

The Paladin pushed the pod further into the Blue Lion’s open mouth and in a dobash they flew away, leaving Coran behind with a grieving father.

Driven by his frustration over not understanding the King, Coran rushed away to look for King Alfor. He soon found him standing by the pods.

“You know who the mother of that boy is” Coran started without any proper greeting.

“Yes, I know.” The king walked to the control panel and turned on the pods. “But it’s not the child’s or even the father’s fault what she did. He’s innocent in every regard.”

Coran frowned at the pods as the lights at their bottom turned on.

“You know how to repair them” he said.

“Of course I know” the King answered. “I was one of those who built them.”

“Then why did you make a deal with that man?”

Alfor turned to look at Coran with a sad smile.

“I admire those who would stand up against anyone to protect their children.”

“And what about all the other children who are still on the planet?”

The smile fell from the King’s face, leaving only the sadness behind.

“It’s too late for an evacuation.”

Coran huffed with anger.

“Why did you send away the Blue Lion then? Without her we can’t form Voltron.”

Alfor walked to Coran. He moved like he was carrying the weight of every planet in Altea’s solar system on his shoulders.

“Coran” he started and looked into the man’s eyes, silently willing him to understand what he couldn’t say with words. “There are things in motion I can’t stop or alter. I’m just following the path that was chosen for me. We all do. But some of us walk down on it in oblivion and believe we are the masters of our fate, and some of us have to carry the burden of knowing there’s no other way.”

With these cryptic words the King left and Coran never really had an opportunity to ask what he had meant. As the Sun rose, Zarkon’s army arrived and him and Princess Allura were put into stasis.

 

*

 

“You mean to tell me—” Allura took a step closer to Croan. “You mean to tell me that Honerva, a well respected Altean I knew since I was a little girl, is Haggar?”

When Coran nodded he saw Lance’s face turning almost as white as his hair. Hunk placed a hand on his shoulder, but he quickly stepped away from him and left the room in a hurry.

Coran shut his eyes and sighed.

Of course he didn’t tell the tale in great details. He left out his suspicions and the circumstances of the deal. It would wake unnecessary doubt in the Princess for his father, and poor Lance would sink deeper into the hate he already felt for himself.

So he kept quite about some parts. He had to first find out the truth, then share it with Princess Allura and the Paladins of Voltron.

 

*

 

It was night time in the Castle, but Lance couldn’t sleep. There were too many things circling in his head to consider sleeping no matter how tired he was. He decided to sit by one of the large windows to watch the stars only to find out he would see his reflection in it. So in the end he settled on watching the floor while he had his hood on his head.

He wasn’t able to look at himself, this new himself. Or old himself. He was confused by all the emotions he felt at the moment and all the information Coran shared with him, he had no time to come into terms with his appearance. He had no problem with Alteans. Allura and Coran were great. But finding out he was one of them while he grew up believing he was a human? It was too much.

Even when he was deep in his thoughts, he picked up with his now more sensitive ears that someone was approaching him. He grabbed his hood and pulled it lower on his face, hiding it from whoever was walking towards him.

“May I sit with you?”

Lance stopped breathing for a moment then he nodded curtly. Keith sat down a few feet away from him. Not too far, but not too close. A comfortable distance was between them.

They were silent for a few moments. Lance slowly felt the tension leaving his body as he started to relax in the other’s company.

“How are you?” Keith asked finally.

Lance couldn’t help but snort.

“Well, apart from the fact that my parents are not my real parents, that I’m an alien, and that my real mother is an evil witch, I’m doing absolutely great.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Of course I’m not!” Lance yelled and finally turned to look at Keith. He was looking as bad as Lance felt himself to be. “My whole life turned out to be a lie! I’m not related to my family! My real mother is our enemy! I want to dig a hole for myself and hide inside it for the rest of my life, but we’re in space, so I can only use this stupid hood! And guess what?! My evil real mother is hiding under a hood too! Looks like our love for hoodies runs in the family!”

Lance buried his face in his knees to hide his it from the other in shame. Keith didn’t deserve to be the target of his rage. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t his fault who Lance turned out to be.

A hand settled on his back and it started rubbing it hesitantly.

“I know how you feel” Keith started with a low voice. “The uncertainty and the fear can be overwhelming. You start to doubt your existence and you begin to drift away from reality until you don’t have any idea who you really are. You’re afraid that the people around you start to look at you differently, and you can’t stop thinking that they don’t trust you anymore and they see the enemy in you. You want to distance yourself from everyone and everything so you can sink deeper into the dark thoughts that run across your head.”

Keith took a deep breath. He stopped rubbing Lance’s back, but his hand stayed there, anchoring the other to reality.

“I think I know what you’re going through. I was there not long ago. It’s not a great experience to find out you’re half-Galra when you’re enemies with the Galra Empire. Everyone had this shadow in their eyes. The suspicion. Allura outright hated me. Everyone treated me differently, like they were waiting for the moment when I turn against them. Everyone but you.” The hand traveled up on his back to settle on his head. “You acted the same way around me, and I was so glad for that I have no words to describe how much I appreciated it. So if—If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I know how much it can mean if—”

Keith couldn’t finish his sentence because suddenly he had an armful of Lance clinging to him like he was to only one who could help him survive in this dark storm raging inside him. Maybe he was. His words certainly made Lance’s heart to break and rebuild itself during his speech and Lance was glad for every one of those words.

So he buried his face into the other’s chest, soaking Keith’s shirt in the process. Keith didn’t seem to be bothered by it, because he just pulled Lance closer to him, and the two sat there in silence, only broken by Lance’s sobs.

 

*

 

Slowly – very, very slowly – Lance started to accept the new reflection that greeted him every time he looked into a mirror. It bothered him, of course, especially his ears that caught into the edge of his helmet every time he put it on and it was pressed against his head weirdly, but he had nothing to do against it. He really didn’t. Allura tried to teach him how to alter his appearance but it didn’t work. It seemed Haggar somehow turned off this ability of his. Fantastic.

The other thing that really bothered him was his sight. It was _too good_. He saw really far and could detect any little detail on everything. Then there was the thing with the Paladin armors…

“HOLY SHIT!” Lance yelled when he looked at his armor since The Thing. The white parts of the armor? Turned out they weren’t white at all. It had a color he had never seen before, and his head quickly started to hurt since his brain wasn’t ready for this experience. He was quickly pulled away by Coran to the medbay, who while gave him some pills, asked a lot of questions about human sight.

Everyone was— nice. They didn’t mention anything related to the turn of events, they acted the same around him as usual. But Lance noticed their gestures. Lingering hugs from Hunk, Pidge’s lighter teasing, the shoulder pats from Coran, the reassuring smiles from Allura.

She— She acted a little weird, he had to be honest. She was touchy and clingy. Always made sure to put a hand on his shoulder or brush the back of his head every time they stood next to each other. She acted nothing like she had when Keith turned out to be half-Galra.

Speaking of which…

Keith made it his mission to be there for Lance a hundred percent. Which was nice, but he really shouldn’t have followed Lance everywhere he went.

“Dude, I know you want to help and all, but I’m certain you have better things to do then be my shadow.”

Keith looked down at his shoes.

“I just— I know how bad it is to be alone.”

Lance sighed and couldn’t help but feel the butterflies flap around his stomach.

“I appreciate it, and I know you’re all worried, but sometimes people need to be alone with their thoughts. I just need a little me time to think.”

Keith didn’t seem convinced when he looked up so Lance put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I won’t lock myself into my room and refuse to leave it for weeks. I’m not an angsty kid like you or your stupid Lion.”

That gained the awaited reaction, Keith frowned and crossed his arms.

“I’m not angsty.”

“Yeah, sure.” Lance patted Keith’s shoulder and waved when he stepped away from him. “Later!”

He turned his back to him before he could see Keith’s reaction. Truth to be told, he wanted to do exactly what he just said. Lock himself inside his room for a few weeks, isolating himself from the world on the other side of his door and try not to drown in his dark thoughts that always haunted him every night he closed his eyes. But he couldn’t do that. The others were expecting better from him. To get over his worries quickly and return back to his old self. But that ship had sailed already. He would never be his old self again, and it had little to do with how he looked. His meeting with Haggar fundamentally changed him and how he saw himself.

He was walking down corridor after corridor until his legs brought him to his dear Lion. Blue looked down at him in silence, but Lance could feel the sympathy floating out of her towards him.

“Hey, girl” he greeted the Lion with a sad smile on his face. “Turns out you knew me longer than I imagined, huh? You’re good at keeping secrets.”

Blue lowered her head and opened her mouth for him to climb inside. It didn’t matter that Lance was flying with Red now and Allura piloted Blue, Blue always will be Lance’s Lion, no matter what.

He missed the cockpit and the way his chair felt. Allura’s flowery smell was lingering inside but nothing really changed since the last time he had been here. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me” he said, but his voiced lacked the accusation. “You know, you should have given me a few hints. Like, hey Lance! There’s a high chance of you being an alien! Or, did you know your mother could be an evil witch? Or something like that. A little heads up. So when I find out it wouldn’t be so out of the blue.” He chuckled. “Pun wasn’t intended but very much appreciated. Good job, me.”

Blue was amused by his joke and was clearly glad to see him having a good time. Lance felt the warmth of his Lion spreading through him, embracing him, like he was a cub needing his mother’s love.

The thought suddenly evaporated his good mood and the sadness came back. Lance opened his eyes and curled himself up in the chair.

“Hey, Blue? Do you know why she left? Did she not love me and my father? Aren’t mothers supposed to love their children unconditionally?” He pressed his cheek against the chair. “She joined Zarkon and they destroyed Altea. Did she—” He swallowed. “Did she want to kill me?”

He felt tears gathering in his eyes and he didn’t bother brushing them away. Blue knew exactly how he felt, there was no point to hide or deny it.

Blue didn’t know the answer but she reassured him that there were people who loved him regardless of who he was. And his family back on Earth loved him too, even though he was not their blood.

That made him wonder…

“Do you know how they found me?” he asked. “Don’t tell me I was floating in space for ten thousand years before I landed at their feet.”

Blue chuckled.

“Oh my god…” Lance rolled his eyes.

 

*

 

The Blue Lion was flying through the portal King Alfor opened for her. Their destination was an Altea-like planet, far from the greatly habited part of the Universe. They had no idea how the King could know about such a planet, but the Lion and her Paladin wasn’t complaining. The King gave them orders and they would follow them without question.

But…

They wanted to stay on Altea and help protecting it. Zarkon was one of them and he betrayed the team. It was their responsibility to take him down. They were the ones who hadn’t noticed what the Black Paladin was planning.

Blue sent a reassuring wave towards her Paladin who chuckled.

“I know, Blue. But I still feel responsible. We were friends. We shared our hearts with each other when we formed Voltron. We should have known earlier. Before the Druids left.”

The Paladin turned in the chair to look at the pod behind it.

“Poor kid. He has no clue what a mess is going on around him.”

Blue looked down at the boy in the pod. Only a few quintets old and he already lost his mother, who knew what would happen to his father, and he was on a journey to the unknown.

Her Paladin laughed.

“No way, Blue! You just met him a few vargas ago and you already like him! No matter how cute the kid is, you won’t get rid of me that easily.”

Blue sent a huffy wave towards her Paladin who just laughed at it.

They spent a few more vargas inside the wormhole until they finally arrived to their destination. The planet was… beautiful. Most of it was covered with water and the Blue Lion was very pleased to see that.

“King Alfor made sure to find the perfect hiding place for the Lions, right?” the Blue Paladin commented and started looking through the new data. “The whole system is surprisingly peaceful. Thirteen planets, three of them in the habitable zone but only this one has life on it. But the sensors are picking up bacterial life forms on two moons of two gas giants. No asteroids on collision course, no black holes or potential super novas in the area. Almost too good to be true. These life forms are damn lucky to live in a planet like this. I’m surprised only the King knew about this place.”

They circled around the planet for a while, observing the life forms on the surface.

“The dominant species are Altean-like but not that developed in technology or in society. I don’t think they really know their own planet. There are some other intelligent life forms too, but they are far behind the dominant species.”

The Blue Paladin looked back at the boy.

“What do you think? Should we wake him?”

The Blue Lion disagreed. It was too early for that, she knew well. It was not the right time yet.

“You’re right” the Paladin agreed. “I’m leaving that to you. Until that we can’t bring him down to the planet. Natural disasters could be dangerous. What do you think, will he be safe in orbit around the planet?”

After Blue agreed with this, her Paladin started to work on the pod. They had to make sure the pod’s connection to the Lion would be undisturbed for as long as it had to be, so when the time came Blue could make it land safely on the surface. And also to make sure it wouldn’t fall and it wouldn’t be detectable if the dominant species’ technology started to develop.

“Alright.” The Paladin stood and brushed the glass above the boy’s face. “Take care, little one. I wish a happy life for you when it’s finally time for you to wake up.”

They sent out the pod and once its orbit stabilized, the Lion and her Paladin landed on the planet.

Time passed. Blue found a good place inside a cave to wait. Her Paladin grew old, but never lost the spirit to make a few good jokes and smile. Her Paladin decorated the walls of the cave with the story of Voltron when they received news about Altea’s fall. But the day – as the humans of this planet called it – came when her dear Paladin passed and the Lion grieved for years.

The Lion watched in silence as the centuries passed and humans evolved. They built societies, developed new technologies, fought bloody wars with each other. They grew and grew, having greater dreams with each year and decade.

It wasn’t until a Galra arrived on the planet that the Blue Lion felt that the time was coming. She waited and waited, and when a new life was growing under the Galra’s heart she signaled for the pod. It was time. She felt it. The new Paladins of Voltron were on this planet, the safest planet that was too good to be true.

She waited until the pod landed then returned to her slumber. For now her part was done. It was now the five new Paladin’s time to find her and answer the call of their destiny.

 

*

 

“Lance?”

Lance startled awake. Allura was watching him with an apologetic smile on her face.

“Sorry” he said and rubbed his eyes as he sat up properly. “I didn’t plan to fall asleep.”

“It’s alright. The Blue Lion asked for me to come here for you. She was worried your body would ache if you slept in this position for longer.”

Lance chuckled and brushed the control panel.

“Thanks, girl.”

In return, the Lion roared gently in his head.

Lance sighed and looked behind the chair where the pod used to be. It was so incredible to imagine he was inside this Lion ten thousand years ago and spent most of that time around Earth in stasis. Unbelievable.

“What was she like?”

He felt Allura’s gaze on him. She let out a sigh and sat down on his right.

“A very intelligent woman. She seemed a little cold at first glance, but you had to know her for a while to realize that deep down she had a good heart. She was a Druid. They were powerful sorcerers who could use quintessence like no one else.”

Lance looked up when he noticed Allura’s fingers trembling. She had tears in her eyes.

“I grew up knowing her. I never met her husband but—” She took a deep shaky breath. “I saw her belly grow with each moon cycle.” She looked at Lance, one drop of tear rolling down her cheek. “I once put my hand on it and I felt a kick.” She raised a hand and tucked a stand of hair behind Lance’s ear. “I remember saying _‘I’m so excited, Honerva! The baby’s not mine, we’re not even related, but it’s like he’s already part of my family. I can’t wait to hold him in my arms and watch him grow.’_ ”

The words hit something very painful in Lance’s heart and he soon found himself silently crying too. Allura pulled him into a tight hug. Lance’s ear was pressed right above her heart and he listened to the steady beating.

“I’m so sorry, Lance” she whispered and started brushing his hair. Her chin rested on the top of his head. “I’m so sorry for what happened. If I knew what she was planning, I would’ve prevented it somehow.”

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and silently waited until the tears stopped coming.

“I want to go back” he said suddenly after about half an hour.

“Go back where?” Allura asked, but by the way her hand stopped brushing his hair she already knew the answer.

“Back to Earth. I want to know how my parents found me.”

 

*

 

“No” Keith said firmly.

“Why not? It won’t take more than a few hours. I go there, ask a few things, come back.”

“You can’t go, period. We’re almost finished with the magnet, we must be ready to head out and we can’t start without you and Red. What if we’re attacked and we can’t form Voltron? What if they follow you and put Earth in harm’s way? I can’t allow that.”

The problem was, Keith had a good point. But Lance was too stubborn and determined to admit it. Out loud at least.

“Like you were thinking about this when you went to the Blade of Marmora.”

That was a dirty thing to do, he knew. But he had to make Keith see how important it was for him to talk with his parents. And with that he also realized how worried Keith could be now. He had been certainly worried when they had no communication with Keith and Shiro, and Red started attacking the Blade’s base like a mad man. Lion. Mad lion.

Lance sighed.

“Please” he said with a lower voice. “I need to know more about myself.”

Keith looked away because Lance knew he knew what it felt like not knowing himself and searching for every clue he could get his hands on.

“Alright” he said finally. “But you can’t go alone. And certainly not with Red.”

Lance crossed his arms.

“And why is that?”

“Because only Green has the tech to be undetected” Pidge spoke up. Both Lance and Keith startled. They completely forgot the others were there too. “If we go with Green, not only the Galra, but the Garrison back on Earth wouldn’t be able to see us. And I don’t want to be attacked by them. Also—” She paused for a moment. “I need to tell Mom that Matt’s alive somewhere.”

Lance’s heart broke as he saw the sadness taking over Pidge’s features. He also felt the shame rising inside him. He was too selfish to realize the others had their families back on Earth too.

“Hunk?” he turned to his friend. “You coming with us?”

Hunk huffed sadly.

“No, I think I pass.”

“Don’t you want to see your family?”

“More than anything.” He rubbed his eyes quickly. “But I’m afraid if I see them again, I won’t be able to leave. And the Universe still needs us, right?”

Without any hesitation Lance stepped to Hunk and hugged him tight which the other immediately returned.

“I’ll go and tell your family that you’re okay” he promised which resulted in Hunk bursting out in tears.

Lance and Pidge packed a few things quickly and were soon in Green, about to fly through the opening wormhole.

 

*

 

Lance watched Earth with solemn eyes. They arrived an hour ago but they had to wait for a few more to be night in that part of the planet. No matter how much Lance wanted to go to outer space, he missed this planet. It was his home, after all, no matter what his original planet of birth was. He grew up here, this was where his family lived.

“What do you think are the top ten songs right now?” he asked. “Or what movie is in the theaters right now?”

Pidge raised a brow at it, but it made her curious too so she opened her laptop to look up the information.

“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “Comic Con was a few days ago and it was announced that both a Harry Potter and a Lord of the Rings reboot is in the making.”

“What?” Lance leaned over her shoulder to look at the article. “Both as a series? Awesome.”

The time soon came and they started their descending. Pidge first dropped down Lance at the edge of his hometown then she made her way to her home.

Lance sighed as he looked at the town. He pulled his hood lower on his face and made his way to his house.

The town didn’t change much. The billboards had new commercials on them, one shop changed its name, but nothing drastic. His walk home was peaceful too. He didn’t meet with anyone and only a few cars passed him until he stopped at his front door.

Lance took a deep breath. He was nervous. His stomach was jumping around and his legs were trembling like a leaf in the wind, but now that he got here he couldn’t turn his back to it. He had to be brave and face this challenge too. So he raised his hand and knocked.

For a moment, there was silence. He saw through the curtain that the TV was on. Maybe they fell asleep in front of it? Maybe he should’ve gotten here earlier—

The door opened and he came face to face with a woman. She hadn’t changed much in the past months. She had the same round face, the same dark eyes and hair. She was his mother.

The two watched each other in silence. The tension was growing between them and Lance feared when it finally snapped it wouldn’t turn out to be good. So he forced a smile on his face and spoke up.

“Hey” he managed.

His mother only needed this. She grabbed his arms and pulled him into a tight hug. She was shaking as she silently cried, and Lance couldn’t help but do the same. He was faintly aware of his father coming to see what was going on and soon he was hugging them too.

Lance felt ashamed for hurting these two wonderful people who raised him as their own.

 

*

 

They were walking on the beach when they came across the unusual machine. The woman was the first to approach it, the man stayed at a safe distance from it.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know” the woman said. “Looks like a ship.” She leaned above it and gasped. “My God!”

“What is it?” The man quickly rushed to her side to look at the ship too.

Through the glass they saw a baby with white hair and pointy ears, sleeping peacefully.

“We have to open it.” The woman looked around the machine until she found a panel. She pressed the button, and the glass opened with a hiss.

They both held back their breaths as they waited for something, anything to happen. The seconds passed in an agonizingly slow way until the baby finally moved. A hiccup, tiny fingers clenched then relaxed, then blue eyes with a tint of pink opened.

The woman reached out and took the baby in her arms.

“Hey there, honey, hey there” she cooed and brushed the baby’s face. She lifted the blanket then turned to the man. “It’s a baby boy.”

The man watched the baby with wide eyes. He had never seen ears like this in real life, only in movies and video games. And here was this baby and a weird machine. He reached out and brushed it lightly. Felt like a normal ear to him.

“What do you think? Did he— Did he come from space?”

The woman bounced the baby up and down in her arms as he started to cry.

“That’s the only logical answer.”

“What should we do? Call the authorities?”

“So they can do what? Experiment on a baby?”

The man sighed and looked at the ship. When he noticed a small device he picked it up and pressed the only button on it. A hologram of a photo appeared above it with a man and a heavily pregnant woman on it, smiling at the camera, standing in front of a futuristic background.

The man and the woman stared at the photo with growing sadness.

“What do you think? What happened to them?”

The man shook his head and turned off the device, putting it inside his pocket.

“What about the boy?”

“We keep him?” the woman suggested.

“And how? Wouldn’t it be suspicious that we suddenly have a baby? A baby with white hair and pointy ears and blue paint on his face?”

The woman looked down at the baby and gasped again. As they were speaking, the baby’s appearance changed. He no longer had pointy ears and his hair turned brown. The marks on his cheeks were still there but fainter. The baby was staring at the woman with wide blue eyes. The pink disappeared from them too.

“Well.” The man rubbed the back of his head, confused by the sudden change. “One problem solved I guess. What about the other?”

The woman chewed on her lower lip as she was thinking about it.

“We tell our family the truth. I trust my parents, and your parents are trustworthy too, and the kids are old enough to understand how important it is to keep secrets. We can raise him, right? We have space, we have some cloths left in the attic. I don’t trust anyone else with this baby.”

The man agreed. Who knew how others would have reacted to an alien baby. They hid the ship inside a cave then made their way home with the baby. A baby they would soon love like their very own.

 

*

 

They were only a bit surprised when the hood came off but as it turned out they had already seen him like this when they had found him years ago. Lance was eating his favorite food made by his mother as he listened to the story. It wasn’t long but it filled a few gaps in his origin story. When his parents finished, it was his turn to tell his tale of his space adventures. He left out a few parts of course, he didn’t want to scare them more than necessary.

Two hours passed when he finally got to the end. A comfortable silence followed his last words, only broken by the ticking of the clock above the door.

Finally, his father sighed and stood up.

“I think it’s time to give it to him, don’t you think?”

His mother nodded then turned back to Lance who frowned at the two.

“We wanted to tell you after your graduation. But we never got to that part.”

Lance looked down.

“I’m sorry for scaring you. I didn’t have time to say goodbye. The Galra were about to attack Earth and—”

“No need to explain yourself, son.” His father put a hand on his shoulder as he stepped next to him. “We’re glad you’re safe and sound.”

Then his father handed him a small device. Lance hesitated for a moment, but when he got a reassuring nod from his father and a smile from his mother, he gathered his courage to press the button.

A photo appeared in front of him. The man looked exactly like him, only his skin was lighter and his hair red. The woman looked nothing like her present self. She was beautiful with her long white hair, darker skin and bright blue eyes. She had a hand on the underside of her huge belly.

Lance swiped to the left.

The next photo was of the woman only, sitting in the middle of a field of flowers.

_Just like in that dream,_ Lance thought.

He swiped and swiped, looking at the couple as they smiled at the camera and at each other lovingly.

Then came a photo that took Lance’s breath away.

The woman was holding a newborn baby. She smiled down at him, one arm around him while the other hand cupped his tiny face. They looked so peaceful, a perfect picture of a mother who loved her baby.

It was too much.

Lance turned off the device and buried his face into his palms.

It was too much.

His parents hugged him from each side and held him as the sobs shook his body.

Too damn much…

 

*

 

Pidge picked him up around three in the morning and they made their way to Hunk’s family. None of them spoke, both deep in their thoughts after they met their parents. Lance noticed Pidge had a few bags in the corner of the cockpit. He looked at his own pile of bags in the other corner. At least this time they could pack a few things.

And they could say goodbye.

Hunk’s mother hugged them both, even though she only met Lance before. It turned out Hunk told a few things about Pidge to his mother too, and how they had to work together as a team back at the Garrison.

Hunk’s parents took the news surprisingly well. Of course they had tears in their eyes as they listened to their story, but they were both proud of their brave son. And most of all, they were happy to know he was alive and well.

They didn’t spend much time there. Hunk’s mother packed a few bags for his son too and the two waved from their front door as Lance and Pidge left.

“I’m going to find Matt” Pidge said, finally breaking the silence between them. “And I’m going to defeat the Galra Empire so I can come home without being afraid of when they’d attack us.”

Lance watched Pidge as her eyes turned misty then patted the top of her head.

“Well said. Let’s kick some Galra butts and show them they have to get up earlier to mess with us.”

Pidge grinned up at him as Green flew towards the opening wormhole.

 

*

 

Keith, Hunk, Allura and Coran were already in Green’s hangar when they returned. They all helped in taking the bags out of the Lion. Hunk started crying as soon as he recognized his old bags. It just intensified when he opened the smallest one and saw what was inside it: his cooking equipment, spices, and a letter from his parents. Lance couldn’t help but tear up too as he rubbed his friend’s back.

When they finished packing and the emotions settled, they made their way to the bridge to talk with the Blade, the Olkari and Slav. The magnet was ready for action, they only needed a solid plan, because Lance didn’t want this to be one of the hundred realities where it didn’t work.

“Did you find it?” Keith asked just before they entered the bridge. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Lance stopped and put his hand in his pocket, feeling out the device inside it.

“Yeah. I wasn’t ready for it yet, I guess, but I found it.”

Keith only nodded and didn’t ask more questions. Lance was glad. He wasn’t sure he could talk about it more without breaking down.

They stayed in the room for a long while, but came out with new found determination. Allura and Pidge would place the magnet in the right position while the other three Paladins would distract Lotor’s fleet. The magnet had a timer because when it was turned on not even the Lions would be able to escape. There was the risk of the Galra detecting the magnet, but it was a risk they had to take. They had to try and be scared and be brave, and don’t run away from a challenge like a coward.

“Alright, girl!” Lance rubbed his palms together and grabbed the controllers. “You were waiting for kicking some Galra butts. Let’s do exactly that.”

Red roared so loud that Lance was sure he saw a screen shattering down below and the two flew out to follow the others.

_“What’ve you done to my Lion?”_ Keith’s head appeared next to him on the screen.

“Nothing.” Lance shrugged and showed the other a smug smile. “I just know how to handle stubborn, hot-headed people.”

Keith huffed and he disappeared from the screen.

The plan was the following: Lance, Keith and Hunk would make the biggest and flashiest distraction ever, and while all the Galra forces were focusing on them, Allura and Pidge would enter through an other wormhole with the magnet and start the countdown. They agreed in five dobashes. That would be enough to leave in time and for the Galra to not notice what was really going on. From the Blade’s information they already memorized the pattern the patrol ships were using, so they would easily make everyone to follow them.

_“Paladins, get ready!”_ he heard Allura. _“The wormhole will open in three—two—one—”_

The giant swirling portal appeared before them and Red, Black and Yellow made their way there.

“Good luck, everyone!”

_“To you too, Princess”_ Keith said. _“Guys, let’s go!”_

 

*

 

You make plans to have an idea about what to expect. You imagine everything in great detail, you carry the plan out, then go home and celebrate your victory.

Yeah, right…

At first everything went according to plan. They distracted every patrol ship, blew up a few, the three of them made a great job. Allura just told them that they arrived with the magnet and were ready to activate it, when everything made a turn to the worse.

A new ship showed up, as big as Zarkon’s, and at first Lance thought it really was him, but then he remembered whose fleet they attacked.

_“Guys, I think Lotor doesn’t like us attacking his planet”_ Hunk said. Lance saw Yellow making some maneuvers to get out of the way of an attacking ship.

_“What’s going on there?”_ Pidge asked.

“Lotor just made an impressive entrance” Lance answered and turned Red towards the new ship. “We can’t let them find the magnet!”

And he pushed the controllers forward to attack it.

_“Lance, wait—”_ he heard Keith yelling at him, but it was too late.

Why he hadn’t seen the tractor beam firing at him, he still had no idea. It only caught his Lion, the other two got blown away.

“GUYS!” Lance tried to turn the Lion but the beam was too strong. He was helplessly floating towards the ship while he had no idea what happened to the others behind him. “GUYS! GUYS! SHIT!”

He hit the panel in front of him in frustration. Two options. They were dead, or the communication was not working. He really hoped the latter was true. He was being pulled inside the ship. Two options. He could wait for them to take him away as soon as the Lion enters, or he could wait for them try to take him away. Once again, the latter was a favorable choice.

“Don’t worry, Red” Lance said as he activated the Red Bayard. “We gonna get out of here and save the others.”

Red agreed and suddenly he was overwhelmed by the worry she felt towards her real Paladin.

“Yeah” Lance admitted with a small smile. “I can relate.”

As soon as they landed, Red lowered her head and opened her mouth. Lance with his Bayard ready to attack waited for any soldiers to enter, but they never came. With a frown he carefully exited the Lion and took a look around. Nothing. The room was empty.

Knowing this, Lance walked farther from the Lion to take a look at her. The beam was still active, pinning Red to the ground. She growled in frustration.

“I know, girl. I’ll try to shut down the power source. Don’t leave without me.”

Red made an annoyed huff behind him as he ran to the exit.

The ship was… surprisingly empty. He walked down empty corridor after empty corridor, not seeing or hearing anyone on his way. He quickly realized it was a trap, so he slowed down, clenched his fingers tighter around the hilt of the sword, and mentally got ready for anything that could wait for him.

Rounding a corner and seeing Haggar on the other end was not included in ‘anything’.

He froze as his eyes settled on the witch. He felt Haggar staring at him under the hood and a shiver ran down his spine. He swallowed, his dry throat barely working.

“So” he started. “We meet again, I guess?”

Haggar didn’t move for a while, then she turned around.

“Follow me.”

The worst thing to do in this situation was to follow her. Lance knew she was an enemy. She was fighting against them and they were fighting against her.

_But—But she was—_

Lance took a deep breath and followed her. He didn’t trust her at all. She was not the woman on the pictures anymore. If she ever had been… She was one of the enemy and he had to be prepared for the worst. A trap could be around any corner and Haggar was only waiting for him to lose attention and capture him.

“Where are we going exactly?” he asked after a while. They hadn’t met anyone yet. Were they the only ones here?

“You’ll see soon” was the only answer he got.

After a minute of walking down corridors they entered a big room with high walls. It looked like an arena. Which was suspiciously empty.

“We’re leaving” Haggar said and stopped in the middle of the room.

“Wha—” Lance was about to take a step back to get back to the corridor, but his back hit the closing door. He turned to stare at the metal preventing him to escape. “What do you want?!”

Haggar looked back at him.

“The Druids are getting old” she said. “Our time is running out and soon we can’t serve our King Zarkon. We need young blood who can harness quintessence and continue our work as the loyal servants of Zarkon.”

Blood froze in Lance’s veins. He raised his Bayard and pointed it at Haggar.

“Sorry, but not gonna happen. I’m not the kind who betrays their friends and family and join the enemy.”

Haggar wasn’t affected by the words. She turned around and started to walk towards the door on the other side.

“Now you think that, but soon you’ll realize the truth.”

Lance tightened his grip around the hilt and followed the witch.

“What kind of truth? What are you talking about?”

No answer.

“What are you talking about?!” he repeated, louder.

Haggar almost reached the door.

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MOM!?”

His voice echoed for a while. Lance came to a halt then took a step back. He had no idea why he had called her like that. The woman on the pictures was no more. This witch wasn’t her.

Haggar’s hand froze right above the panel next to the door. They stood there in silence, for a while, the echo slowly fading.

Then Haggar looked back at him above her shoulder and Lance stopped breathing for a moment.

“Have you ever thought about why Alfor built a weapon like Voltron for Altea when it was claimed to be so peace loving?” she asked with a low voice. “What kind of war did he want to start?”

“Voltron is not for war” Lance said. “It’s for defending the innocent. Keeping the peace in the Universe.”

Haggar chuckled.

“You’re so naïve. Weapons can’t keep the peace. It only encourages others to make better weapons.”

Lance’s muscles tensed when Haggar turned around to look him properly in the eyes.

“You don’t know what I know. You didn’t see what I saw, don’t see what I see. There are things in motion you can’t understand now. But I can help you.”

She took a step towards him and Lance made one backwards.

“You only have to come with me. I can teach you so many things about yourself. You can’t imagine what hidden talents and powers you have. Just come with me.”

Lance couldn’t believe this was really happening to him. When did he become Luke Skywalker? He started to think again that all of this was a dream. He watched too much Star Wars with Hunk before going to bed, that must be it.

“Or.”

Lance was startled by the new voice behind him. He quickly turned around, sword ready to defend himself.

The door was open and a man was standing there. He had long white hair and purple skin. He looked like a Galra, but there was something odd Lance couldn’t describe.

“We can force you to come with us. Works for me either way.”

He was fast. Lance only blinked once and he was already there, in front of him, his own sword held high for an attack. Lance blocked it in the last minute, but the man was still too strong for him. He soon found himself pressed down on his knees.

The man smiled down at him, a maniac glint shining up in his blue irises surrounded by yellow.

“Where are my manners? I’m Lotor. Maybe you’ve heard about me here and there. And you must be the Blue Paladin. Lance, is it?” His smile turned more predatory. “It’s very nice to finally meet you. _Brother._ ”

Wha—

Lance’s arms went lax just for a moment. It was long enough for Lotor to push Lance on the floor completely, and bring the edge of his sword to Lance’s neck.

“What’s the matter?” Lotor asked, tilting his head. “You didn’t know? Haggar never mentioned it to you?”

_Impossible, impossible, impossible…_

It was a mantra in Lance’s head. Lotor was just playing with him, he only wanted to confuse him and use it to his advantage. It was a lie.

_Was it?_

He recalled the pictures in him mind, showing the woman in different angles. The shape of the chin, the nose… the eyes… As Lance saw, most of the Alteans had blue eyes, just different shades. And Lotor’s blue was the same as the woman’s blue.

Which was the same as his.

Lance’s vision blurred as he started to accept that Lotor was telling him the truth. Why? Why, why, why, _why_? Why did all these people, all these enemies of Voltron turn out to be related to him by blood? What kind of game was life playing with him?

“Prince Lotor” Haggar started. “I suggest you to not kill him. He’s a valuable asset for us.”

Lotor smirked down at Lance, the edge of the blade pressing a bit harder against Lance’s neck. He felt a small trail of warm blood flowing down his neck.

“You’re lucky we need you, little Paladin. Or else you would be long dead now.”

“LANCE!”

Lance’s heart skipped a beat when he heard Keith’s voice. _He was alive._ But what was he doing here? Hunk was here too? Was he okay?

Lotor looked behind him then turned back to Lance.

“You stay here.”

He pulled away the sword but his other hand quickly grabbed for the top of his chest armor. Lotor yanked Lance up by it, then hit him against the floor. Lance rolled to his side with a groan as his head started feeling dizzy. It was like a thousand needles were stabbed into his brain, very slowly. He was aware of Keith and Lotor fighting not too far from him, but he only saw two blurs moving around.

Lance rolled on his stomach and pressed a hand on his mouth as he tried to fight back his nausea. He had to help Keith. He had to help. He had to. But how? He was so useless against Lotor and Haggar. Look at him. He couldn’t make a movement without almost throwing up. What a great Paladin he was…

He felt a hand on top of his head, lightly brushing his hair. Lance almost moved into the touch. Almost. It was in the last moment he realized who was crouching above him.

“It’s time to go” Haggar said and grabbed his arm.

“No.” Lance tried to pull away, but Haggar’s fingers only dug deeper into his arm.

“You’re going to have a proper education. You’ll be such a great servant of Zarkon.”

“No—”

“LANCE!” he heard Keith shouting at him. Swords started colliding more frequently.

“It’s your fate, Isamu. It’s set in stone. You can’t fight against it.”

Lance shook his head, the dizziness getting worse.

“No—”

“Damn it— _LANCE!_ ”

“Come.” Haggar pulled him.

And he just… snapped.

“I SAID NO!”

With the shout something else broke out of him. A shiver ran down his spine and suddenly everything was too cold to bear. The air around him exploded and he heard screams. Lance was breathing heavily, the cold still there inside him. His fingers were curling up then relaxing, crawling the floor with his nails like he tried to dig in it.

Then his head fell back on the ground. And he felt it.

_The stardust._

It was right there, he was lying on it. He felt it under his palms, the sparkling. He had to blink a few times before his eyes could properly focus, but it was there. The stardust he had seen so many times in his dreams. He finally fou—

 

*

 

_“Guys! … Lance! … KEITH?! What happened to you?!”_

_“Doesn’t matter. Grab Lance and let’s get out o—”_

 

*

 

_“He has a concussion. A little time in the healing pod and a good rest and he would be better as ever. But I’m more concerned about—”_

_“Take care of him first. I can wait.”_

_“Keith, frostbite can—”_

_“I don’t care Coran. I’m not getting into a pod un—”_

 

*

_“There you go! Look at you! Good as new.”_

_A groan._

_“It’s okay, man. Take it ea—”_

 

*

 

He felt like he just blinked when his eyes opened after a probably very long sleep. His body and mind were both awake and ready for a new day. He felt healthy, strong, his muscles wanted to move around nonstop. But instead he was staring at the ceiling, while his mind was filled with the kind of emptiness that pushed your skull from the inside.

Not only Haggar was his mother.

It also turned out Lotor was his half-brother.

He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. He had one messed up family…

Memories of the fight came back to him, and he soon remembered the coldness that erupted from him. The screams. Hunk’s voice? Calling out Keith’s name with fear and worry?

Lance gasped as realization hit him like a truck.

“I hurt him.”

He heard movement to his right and from the corner of his eye he saw Pidge startling awake, tablet almost sliding off her lap.

“Hey Lance” she greeted him with visible relief. “We were starting to get worried. You were sleeping for almost a—“

“I hurt him” Lance repeated. He sat up and looked Pidge dead in the eyes. “Where is he?”

He didn’t have to convince her much. She led him out of the medbay to the pods. Keith occupied one of them.

Stepping to it, Lance watched with amazement how peaceful the other looked. His usual frown was now replaced with a relaxed expression, making him look younger than ever. If only his nose, chin, ears and hands weren’t black…

“Fourth degree frostbite” Pidge explained. “He was exposed to an extreme cold. Not only his skin was damaged, his muscles, tendons and a few of his bones too.” She looked down at her feet, rubbing the tip of her shoe to the floor. “He refused to go into a pod until you got better.”

“Which means?” Lance asked.

Pidge sighed.

“He waited about a day. Your injuries weren’t that serious, but for Keith without treatment it was too long. His skin started to blacken and Coran had to sedate him after you got out the pod because he still didn’t want to get in.”

Lance shook his head.

“Idiot…”

He sat down on the floor and pulled the blanket around him tighter. It was chilly here, tough he was unsure if the room was cold, or he only felt it inside. What he knew for sure was the burning shame inside him, which should have negated the cold, but instead the two joined forces to make him feel more miserable.

This, right there? That was his fault. Whatever power he had inside him, he couldn’t control it, and he hurt one of his friends, his family. It was his fault Keith got injured and now had to stay in a pod for who knew how long. It was his fault Keith refused to be healed in time. All his fault…

“No— Don’t say that!” Pidge sat down next to him, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t blame yourself. Don’t do this.”

Lance pulled the blanket up his head so only a small part of his face was seen.

“I should’ve had more control o—”

“Over something you used how many times? Once?”

“Twice, actually” he said. “When I first met with Haggar I—panicked and I froze her hand? I didn’t know what was going on.”

“See?” Pidge moved in front of him so she could look under the blanket to see Lance. “How would you’ve been able to control it? It wasn’t your fault.”

Lance shook his head.

“I should’ve tried to—“

“Listen to me” Pidge said firmly and grabbed his head to stop him moving it. “What happened, happened. You can’t change it. It’s a fact. But it’s also a fact that you can learn how to use it. You talk with Allura. She uses quintessence too. She’ll teach you how to keep it under control, so it won’t happen again in the future. Understood?”

Lance let out a shaky sigh then nodded.

“Alright.” Satisfied with the answer, Pidge smiled at him. “I’ll go get Coran now so he can have a look at you.”

He waited for the doors to close behind Pidge before he pulled the blanket off his head. Keith hadn’t moved, his skin was still black. Lance sighed and pulled his knees closer to his chest. Waiting would be an agony.

 

*

 

Later he found out what had happened.

The blast Black and Yellow got was only for making them back away while Red was pulled in. Keith quickly recovered and went after Lance. Hunk stayed behind to deal with the remaining patrols and told Allura what happened before he followed Keith.

He found Keith half frozen into a block of ice. As much as Keith told Hunk that he should get out of here with Lance first, Hunk first freed him from the ice. Haggar and Lotor already left when he arrived, and the three had to hurry to get out. Hunk took Lance to Yellow and the three Lions left the ship quickly. Keith told Allura to set the timer to one dobash and they made their escape through a wormhole.

Later the Blade informed them that the plan worked, the planet entered one of the black hole’s event horizon. The planet would soon disappear with the rare metal in it.

Haggar and Lotor could escape before the magnet started.

Lance didn’t know how to feel about this.

 

*

 

They didn’t let him sit by the pod for more than a few hours, and no matter how much he argued, the others didn’t let him.

He spent every day the same way. He woke up, Hunk didn’t let him leave the table until he ate at least a bowl of goo – which now had more flavors from home, – he went to Keith’s pod, sat there in silence for two vargas, Coran ordered him out, ate launch, sat with Pidge for a while, watching her work, went back to Keith’s pod, Allura gently but firmly asked him to eat dinner with her, ate dinner, Hunk asked him to go take a shower, he took a shower, one of them waited for him outside so he wouldn’t get lost on his way back to his room, lay down in his bed, stared at the ceiling for who knew how long, eventually fell asleep, woke up in the morning, repeat.

This went on for a week. Keith’s injuries were slowly getting better with each day, but according to Coran he needed more time to heal. It wasn’t a broken bone or a stab wound. This serious frostbite affected every cell of every tissue of his body. The pod needed to rebuild every damaged one. And that was a lot. After a week there were still black spots on Keith and it didn’t help Lance feel any better. He hoped Lotor and Haggar were in a much worse shape, because – once again – they couldn’t form Voltron without the Black Lion. They needed Keith.

At the beginning of the second week he was spending his afternoon sitting by the pod when Allura sat down next to him. He frowned at her in surprise because she usually just brushed his shoulder and asked him to go with her. She never joined him.

They sat there in silence for a while, then Allura looked at him.

“I’m sorry.”

Lance frowned at her.

“For what?”

“I should’ve known you could use quintessence.” She reached out and brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Only the Alteans with white hair have the ability to do it. I should’ve taught you earlier and we wouldn’t be here now.”

Lance shook his head.

“Stop it, Allura. Don’t play the blame-game too.”

Allura frowned at him as she put her hand back on her lap.

“Because only you can play it, can’t you?”

Lance turned away and started playing with the bottom of his jacket.

Many dobashes passed in silence. But it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Allura had that calm aura around her that would make anyone feel safe in her company. She was a great, supportive leader. Altea would’ve had a great queen after Alfor.

Lance took a deep breath.

“Lotor’s my half-brother.”

This was the first time he said it out loud, making this piece of information an unchangeable fact he had to come into terms with. His living blood relatives were a bunch of psychos. Fantastic.

“I—I don’t know what to say” Allura started hesitantly. “Unfortunately you can’t choose your family.”

“That’s not true.”

When Allura looked up, eyes questioning, Lance continued.

“Sharing the same blood doesn’t mean those people have to be your family. There was this old show. Two brothers who built up their family of the people they met along their journey. And these bonds between unrelated people created a stronger family than the family who they were related to. My parents who raised me, my siblings who teased me but stood by my side are back on Earth. My friends who I love as much as them are on this ship. That includes Shiro too. And my Earth family and my space family is more important than the two I’m actually related to. And those two hurt my family. I’ll never forgive them.”

Allura stared at him with wide eyes, then the stunned expression was replaced by a teary smile. She pulled Lance to a side hug and rested her head on his.

“You know… Deep down I’m sure that the Honerva I used to know would be really proud of you.”

Lance tensed and Allura pulled him closer in response.

“And I’ll do as much as I can to find out what happened to her” she promised. “I’ll find out what happened to your mother.”

Lance took a deep breath. He wanted to believe Allura. She was someone who he could trust without a doubt. If someone, she would be the one to keep that promise.

He pulled the device out of his pocket and pressed the button. The first picture appeared with the man and the woman.

Allura squeezed his shoulder.

“You look like your father. You have his smile too.”

Lance hummed and swiped to the left until he got to the photo with the woman and the baby. The two stared at it for a while.

“Isamu.”

“Hm?”

“She called me Isamu” Lance explained. “I—I think that’s my birth name.”

He could feel Allura’s smile on the top of his head.

“Very fitting. Isamu was a legendary blacksmith who forged a shield that protected Altea from a great storm. He was famous of his bravery and kind heart.”

Lance chuckled.

“I can’t forge.”

“No. But you are brave and kind, and would go great length to protect everyone in need.”

Lance had a hard time agreeing with Allura, especially after what had happened, but he didn’t say anything. That would only lead to an other long conversation.

So he swept again and again, photos showing the woman and the man holding the baby, until—

Lance frowned at the screen.

“What’s this?”

Allura lifted her head from his. The screen turned blue with white Altean letters on it.

“It needs confirmation.”

“What kind?”

“See that circle?” Allura pointed at the bottom of the screen. “Place your thumb there.”

Lance did as the Princess asked. As soon as his finger touched it, the screen became dark for a while, then a video started playing. The man was sitting at a desk, looking straight into the camera.

_“Isamu”_ he started. His voice wasn’t deep, but not too high either. _“There are so many things I want to tell you, but there’s not enough time. I put some important files on this device that would only open to your DNA.”_ The man sighed and smiled at the camera. _“I know you are confused or scared now. I am too, to be honest. But your mother believes in what she’s doing is right, and I have to trust her, even if it means Altea’s end.”_ He looked down, deep in his thoughts for a few moments. _“King Alfor is planning something.”_

Lance felt Allura getting tense next to him. He also heard footsteps behind him and was sure that Coran was listening too.

_“He wants to send the Lions away without a fight, which is insane. But it gave me a chance to send you far away from here before Zarkon attacks us.”_

The door opened and Hunk entered followed by Pidge.

“Hey, guys. Dinner is—” Hunk was quickly hushed by Coran who motioned for them to join the three at the pod.

_“I only know this because I broke into the Castle’s system. King Alfor has escape plans for every Lion and one for the Castle and Princess Allura. I only had time to decode these files but there are many more. Alfor is hiding something and I can’t find it out right now. I leave this to you, Isamu. I believe in you.”_

The man rubbed his eyes and grinned at the camera.

_“I’m sorry I can’t be there for you. I’m sorry I can’t teach you the lessons every father should teach their sons. But believe me, sending you away is the best thing I can do right now. You’re still so small and have no idea what’s going on around you. I can’t let you die this early in your life.”_ He looked down, tears freely flowing down his cheeks. _“I love you, son.”_

The video ended. The Paladins and Coran all stared at the screen as a list of files appeared on it. Lance raised a hesitant hand and tapped on the first. The file opened and Altean symbols appeared that changed every tick, making it unreadable.

“Coran, Pidge, what do you think?” Lance asked, not looking away from the symbols. “Can you crack the code?”

“Well” Coran started. “King Alfor used a very unique coding system. It would take some time. But I’m sure we can do it.”

“That’s right” Pidge agreed. “If we work hard, we definitely can.”

Allura stood up and Lance lost his balance for a second. Looking up at her, the Princess looked more determined than ever before.

“My father’s parting words to me was that if everything went as planned, we would see each other again. I want to know what he meant by that. 

Lance stood up too, Allura’s words and behavior affecting him too. He had had enough with sitting around and waiting for something to happen. He now found a new purpose to go on and do something useful. He glanced at Keith in the pod, still in a deep slumber. He wouldn’t want Lance to mope until he got better. He would want him to do something, work hard and help the others.

And he would do exactly that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaand that’s it :D Yes, I finished it here. This is the end, a very open end, nothing more is planned after this. Maybe I’ll return to it after Season 3 or 4, but I’m not promising anything. I hope you enjoyed reading the story! I certainly enjoyed writing it, even if it caused a lot of headache connecting the beginning and the end, and sometimes I had to force myself to reread it again and again and again…
> 
> NOTES:
> 
> \- As much as I love Black Paladin Lance fics, it wouldn’t have fitted this story.
> 
> \- Twin black holes: I came up with the idea on my own, I started writing it, but then I got a little nervous. Is it really possible? A planet between two black holes without anything happening to it? So I looked it up and found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALK1BvMytSg&t=325s I love you, Universe Sandbox!
> 
> \- The Garrison is basically a combination of NASA and the Air Force. And to join NASA, you have to have a degree in engineering, physical science, life science or mathematics. The full list can be found here: https://nasajobs.nasa.gov/jobs/civil_service_jobs/career/page10.htm Since most of the team is still a teen, I think while they study at the Garrison, they specialize on one or more of the subjects. Pidge is a genius, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d major in everything. Hunk is an engineer, so he studied some kind of Engineering. Keith probably studied Aeronautics and/or Astronautics. And maybe Engineering too. What about Lance? While the official site states Lance’s intelligence as 12/20, he was the first to use Altean measurements of time correctly. So I think he’s good at Math. And let’s add Astrophysics to the mix too, because space.
> 
> \- The Paladin’s armor is like the clones’ from Star Wars: you see white, Alteans and Kaminoans see more colors.
> 
> \- Yes. Thirteen planets.
> 
> \- Lance's origin story is basically Superman's origin story.
> 
> \- My original idea was that Lance continued fighting with Lotor and Keith was fighting with Haggar, then Lotor comes close to killing Lance, and Haggar knocks Lotor out, showing a moment of weakness, then the two leave. But it’s better how I wrote it in the end.
> 
> \- Look up photos of frostbitten hands and feet at your own risk.
> 
> \- I made a Supernatural reference in a Voltron fic. Thank you, I’m very proud of myself too.
> 
> \- I planned a Red flashback, but that would’ve made the ending too crowded.
> 
> \- I used the Japanese names for Lance’s and Haggar’s Altean name. Isamu (勇) means ‘courage’ or ‘bravery’, while Kurogane refers to steel or iron. The blacksmith story came from this.


End file.
